Top Tips for Selling Your Home This Fall

If you live in New England, fall gives you one of the prettiest backdrops that exists to showcase your home – as long as you follow a few simple guidelines.

Why is selling your home in the fall different than other seasons? It presents natural beauty, specific maintenance needs, and yard clean-up challenges. It also encompasses Halloween, which many homeowners are crazy for - and by crazy, we mean over-the-top spooky decorations all over their yard and home. Crazy decorations and falling leaves both can be a big distraction from your home’s natural beauty. But, follow a few tried-and-true tips, and putting your home on the market this fall will be a pumpkin-smashing success.

• Prior to listing, have your furnace cleaned, tuned-up and inspected. Your heating fuel dealer usually offers this annual service. Since a furnace is not run much throughout the summer months but will be during winter months, the fall is a great time to have your system tuned and maintained. Potential buyers will appreciate that the furnace is safe and ready for action.
  
  
• If your home has a wood burning fireplace, it’s recommended you have it inspected and swept annually. This is another task that buyers will appreciate is done and checked off their list of concerns. Also, save all of the maintenance receipts to prove when each service was done.
  
  
• In the fall, gutters collect leaves, which causes water back-ups and eventually moisture damage to the home. Get the gutters cleaned out and keep them debris-free while the leaves are dropping. Buyers that place an offer will order an inspection of the home and you want this to be something that’s viewed as well-maintained.
  
  
• Don’t make your house look like it’s haunted for Halloween. A few seasonal decorations and carved pumpkins are OK, but cobwebs, skeletons, and graves stones in the yard is not the impression you want to make to potential buyers. Save any extreme, spooky décor for next year in your new home.
  
  
• Replace summer welcome mats with fresh ones. Add a few potted fall plants, like colorful mums, outside your front door, on the deck, and anyplace that summer flowers have started to fade.
  
  
• Rake up the leaves or mow them into a fine mulch. A few leaves can look pretty, but for the most part, fallen leaves make a yard look poorly maintained.
  
  
• Clean every room in your home and make sure it smells welcoming and fresh. The fact is, your home can be clean and still smell like last night’s dinner. Brew a pot of pumpkin coffee or light a cinnamon candle in the kitchen. You want the scent to be fresh and subtle, not overwhelming.

Fall is a great time to list and sell your home. Buyers have returned from summer vacations and are serious about getting settled before the holiday season. Just remember to prepare your home to make the best first impression and to highlight the beauty of the season as much as possible.

Is your house on the market? Check out our resources about marketing your home.